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Ranked Competitive Breast Growth #1
Estro Junkies
Nicky’s never getting on oestrogen. She’s too late. The waiting lists are years long, and private clinics are shutting down. She’s rotting in the apartment she shares with her childhood friend Daniel, the insufferable twink Jeff, and Kyle with his helicopter mother and arranged marriage—and there’s no way out.
Until Daniel knocks on her door with news of an underground online contest. It awards hormones and surgeries to anyone willing to grow the biggest breasts—so long as they claim they’re cis men, and no fellow competitor can prove otherwise. The prize for these men? A million dollars. For Nicky? Her salvation.
Except not all’s as it seems. Daniel is actually Katherine, a trans woman terrified to come out—what if she loses her oldest and only friend? Jeff, hopelessly enamoured with Kyle, turned to the contest to make himself more attractive. And for Kyle, only a million-dollar victory could unshackle him from the life of an eldest desi son.
As their lies and desires set the roommates on a collision course, the question remains: what kind of man would compete to take oestrogen? Answer carefully. Online, someone is always watching. Sisters of Dorley meets Stag Dance in this absurdist, satirical drama exploring transfeminine love, community, and identity in times of panic, scarcity, and crackdown.
Until Daniel knocks on her door with news of an underground online contest. It awards hormones and surgeries to anyone willing to grow the biggest breasts—so long as they claim they’re cis men, and no fellow competitor can prove otherwise. The prize for these men? A million dollars. For Nicky? Her salvation.
Except not all’s as it seems. Daniel is actually Katherine, a trans woman terrified to come out—what if she loses her oldest and only friend? Jeff, hopelessly enamoured with Kyle, turned to the contest to make himself more attractive. And for Kyle, only a million-dollar victory could unshackle him from the life of an eldest desi son.
As their lies and desires set the roommates on a collision course, the question remains: what kind of man would compete to take oestrogen? Answer carefully. Online, someone is always watching. Sisters of Dorley meets Stag Dance in this absurdist, satirical drama exploring transfeminine love, community, and identity in times of panic, scarcity, and crackdown.
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Published May 24, 2026
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May 29, 2026Disclaimer to start with: I am a 50something white British cis woman who forgot her Tumblr password about five years ago. As such I am probably not able to appreciate and certainly not qualified to assess a lot of what the author is doing with this book about chronically online young trans women in the US; I can only say how it landed with me as a general reader.
As that reader, I bloody loved it.
This book is, if I may be forgiven, off its tits. The premise is a Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition for cis men (what) whereby a shady website supplies cis men with free hormones and they compete to grow the biggest breasts for a million dollar prize. But they're definitely cis, no trans allowed. Except of course that closet trans women unable to get gender affirming care hear about it. And also, if you were a cis man growing boobs you'd need a cover story for your life, which would probably be 'being trans'. So what you get is trans women pretending to be cis men pretending to be trans woman. And this is only the start of an absolutely crazed ride.
The four flatmates doing this are, for the main part, spectacularly awful. They lie to themselves and one another; they weaponise social justice language and gender theory for their own needs at the drop of a hat; they are staggeringly unkind and self centred. Everyone is constantly cancelling everyone else, deservedly. But, while the satire is brutal, it's deeply humane. We see them all as people; we see the defensiveness and the needs and the fears and the damage that push them in their ill judged directions. We're laughing at them, and at the wild absurdity of the situation, but it hurts too because beneath the bonkers set-up there's something profoundly real, at turns sad and joyful, and real love, and important relationships being torched and in some cases salvaged.
The writing is spare, compelling storytelling which drives us forward. The characters are exaggerated but not to the point of caricature. Most of all, this book has important things to say about kindness and love and support and what those things look like in practice when you're struggling to exist and your needs do not mesh with those of others.
I was glued to this story of trans disasters, wolfed it down in the course of a single train ride. Very highly recommended. You will gasp a lot.
As that reader, I bloody loved it.
This book is, if I may be forgiven, off its tits. The premise is a Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition for cis men (what) whereby a shady website supplies cis men with free hormones and they compete to grow the biggest breasts for a million dollar prize. But they're definitely cis, no trans allowed. Except of course that closet trans women unable to get gender affirming care hear about it. And also, if you were a cis man growing boobs you'd need a cover story for your life, which would probably be 'being trans'. So what you get is trans women pretending to be cis men pretending to be trans woman. And this is only the start of an absolutely crazed ride.
The four flatmates doing this are, for the main part, spectacularly awful. They lie to themselves and one another; they weaponise social justice language and gender theory for their own needs at the drop of a hat; they are staggeringly unkind and self centred. Everyone is constantly cancelling everyone else, deservedly. But, while the satire is brutal, it's deeply humane. We see them all as people; we see the defensiveness and the needs and the fears and the damage that push them in their ill judged directions. We're laughing at them, and at the wild absurdity of the situation, but it hurts too because beneath the bonkers set-up there's something profoundly real, at turns sad and joyful, and real love, and important relationships being torched and in some cases salvaged.
The writing is spare, compelling storytelling which drives us forward. The characters are exaggerated but not to the point of caricature. Most of all, this book has important things to say about kindness and love and support and what those things look like in practice when you're struggling to exist and your needs do not mesh with those of others.
I was glued to this story of trans disasters, wolfed it down in the course of a single train ride. Very highly recommended. You will gasp a lot.
July 24, 2026
i loved the drama and the romance of it all. also the discord chatter was so scary it was like gazing into the abyss
May 28, 2026
FINALLY IN RATEABLE FORM! the only novel that actively captures 1:1 what transexual drama looks like in year of our lord 2026. something that must be preserved as a slice of history. it was physically sickening.
May 25, 2026
An acerbic four-way car crash, Estro Junkies is a brilliant premise acted out by some of the most oblivious, emotionally illiterate characters to ever grace a page... which is to say: they are young, closeted transfems in denial. The satirical competition aside, the actions taken by the estrogenated competitors feel all too real, and the story slides from hilarious to frustrating to horrifying as the girls pretending to be guys pretending to be girls circle the drain.
An excellent entry into the too-online transfem canon and an exceptional piece of satire.
An excellent entry into the too-online transfem canon and an exceptional piece of satire.
June 22, 2026
This book sucks to read. I couldn't put it down and I love it.
June 21, 2026
I'm not normally a fan of "normal" literature (I prefer sci-fi/fantasy), but Estro Junkies captured my attention from around the third or fourth chapter onwards, rolling me into a hot mess of college-setting lesbian character drama interwoven seamlessly with biting commentary on racist and transphobic dynamics in LGBT and transfem spaces. The book is absolutely worth the time as literature; it starts with an interesting and vaguely ridiculous premise (a Ranked Competitive Breast Growth [RCBG] competition between cis men) and takes it seriously, connecting it to the absurd brainworms real-life trans women tend to have, and then works that out into a deep representation of how LGBT social dynamics can help and hurt people. But despite that, the book is fundamentally optimistic: it's the story of four young trans women learning to stop pretending to be men, growing to want things, and (hopefully) escaping the rancid hell of self-denial that the RCBG competition represents. Despite their varying degrees of success, the points where they succeed and fail feel real, sympathetic, and deeply compelling. It's a very good book.
So that is the quick review! The longer one (light spoilers for first half) is here. Estro Junkies is a story about four roommates -- Jeff, Kathy, Nichole, and Rashmi -- all nominally college-age men who join a Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition. The competition is only open to men, but as you can tell from the characters' names, almost everyone in the story is actually a trans woman in some sense or another -- they just deny it. Did you seriously expect men to grow breasts for money? As a result, in and outside the competition, Estro Junkies follows a group of deeply awkward trans women who, while actively transitioning, constantly doubt themselves and each other while also kissing sometimes, like some sort of college soccer drama about a bunch of DL lesbians fucking each other while having boyfriends in a tangled het prisoner's dilemma. Coming from mostly reading SF/F, which is more concerned with worldbuilding settings, I think Estro Junkies is less interested in the minutia of the server. The book is first and foremost a well-written character drama, and the characters all have different ways of negotiating their half-in-denial trans womanhood -- Jeff becomes a straight woman, Kathy plays card games, Nichole gets hot, and Rashmi is a very good son. Throughout all of this, the fact that almost all of these characters are lesbians (except Jeff) is very obvious, and it is a major thing that smashes them into each other and into the supporting cast of cis and trans lesbians, who all have their own issues but are at least willing to be very open about it.
The other main thing Estro Junkies is interested in is in tracking circuits of trauma and how people hurt each other in transfem/lesbian spaces. Characters in Estro Junkies do awful things for nominally good (or at least explainable) reasons, from Katherine trying to sabotage Nichole's transition, to Jeff having sex with Rashmi in some horrible orientalism-comphet chimera, to Rashmi shunning her transfem childhood friend in order to preserve her Good Son status with her family. Almost every awful thing that happens in the book has a (often equally messed up) reason for it, and I think Estro Junkies does an excellent job of explaining the drivers for hurt/abuse without excusing it, and it also eases all that with a steady drip of real care and companionship between the characters. The result is a blunt representation of the ways people do this shit in community, while still making the reasons for it clear.
And as the examples above show, a lot of this shit is both POV and non-POV characters being racist. This is woven throughout the entire book, but is maybe most explicitly considered in Rashmi's arc, which entwines her own familial situation with her partial isolation relative to the other POV characters. Rashmi's a good son, and scared and judgy as hell, and she hurts both Tahani and Rupali (two non-POV desi lesbian characters) because of it. Her POV feels very real; it's a deep mess of desi familial expectations, "hardworking STEMperson" type repression, and a dash of religious trauma for good measure. And while she's not excused for the things she does, she's also treated very sympathetically throughout the book, mainly because she is constantly used as raw material for the other POV characters' transitions. This is most clear with Jeff, who actively uses Rashmi as a strong man to reinforce her own (straight) womanhood, but Kathy and Nichole just do shit constantly, not to even mention the back half of the book. As a result, when she got to have her fairytale moments near the end of the book I felt like screeching like a small flightless bird (also because it is very lesbian as well!). Racism in Estro Junkies comes in a shit sandwich of different, awful flavors; it has structural effects on how characters move and interact in the story; it is often opportunistic or fueled by characters' trauma, but the book is also utterly uninterested in excusing it. It is deeply interwoven in the story -- Rashmi is the POV character maybe most at risk of becoming a John 50 given her planned life, her need for familial approval, and her straight up arranged marriage (to a lesbian, but she doesn't know that), and all of that is inflected by her often-strained interactions with the other POVs. It feels so blisteringly real, and watching Rashmi slowly break out of it all is a treat.
So ultimately, Estro Junkies is a story about repressed, vaguely traumatized trans women and lesbians (and both!) growing out their breasts in a nameless college town. There is a lot of pain to go around here, but I think the book does a good job at easing it with real moments of community. Three of the four POV characters get a more or less happy ending, at least for now, and even as they hurt each other you can really feel them growing through it. If I have any problems with the book, it's mainly that (1) the book starts slow, taking ~3 chapters to really catch me, (2) the RCBG "competition" element of the story is relevant in pretty short bursts -- it's more present than it was in the web serial, but this is still first and foremost a lesbian character drama. Still, as a character drama, it is an extremely compelling one. Despite not usually being interested in this sort of literature, I was hooked around the third chapter, and about halfway through I finished the rest in one long, long sitting. The characters are just so delightfully messy in a way that lesbians rarely get to be, let alone trans lesbians, and this book has so damn many of them that Tahani, Rashmi, Nichole, and Katherine can all be different and opposing kinds of hot mess. It's a book I absolutely recommend, especially if you've read the serial -- Estro Junkie does what RCBG does tighter and better structured with a lot of fundamental rewrites that, to me, made the story really and truly come together.
So that is the quick review! The longer one (light spoilers for first half) is here. Estro Junkies is a story about four roommates -- Jeff, Kathy, Nichole, and Rashmi -- all nominally college-age men who join a Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition. The competition is only open to men, but as you can tell from the characters' names, almost everyone in the story is actually a trans woman in some sense or another -- they just deny it. Did you seriously expect men to grow breasts for money? As a result, in and outside the competition, Estro Junkies follows a group of deeply awkward trans women who, while actively transitioning, constantly doubt themselves and each other while also kissing sometimes, like some sort of college soccer drama about a bunch of DL lesbians fucking each other while having boyfriends in a tangled het prisoner's dilemma. Coming from mostly reading SF/F, which is more concerned with worldbuilding settings, I think Estro Junkies is less interested in the minutia of the server. The book is first and foremost a well-written character drama, and the characters all have different ways of negotiating their half-in-denial trans womanhood -- Jeff becomes a straight woman, Kathy plays card games, Nichole gets hot, and Rashmi is a very good son. Throughout all of this, the fact that almost all of these characters are lesbians (except Jeff) is very obvious, and it is a major thing that smashes them into each other and into the supporting cast of cis and trans lesbians, who all have their own issues but are at least willing to be very open about it.
The other main thing Estro Junkies is interested in is in tracking circuits of trauma and how people hurt each other in transfem/lesbian spaces. Characters in Estro Junkies do awful things for nominally good (or at least explainable) reasons, from Katherine trying to sabotage Nichole's transition, to Jeff having sex with Rashmi in some horrible orientalism-comphet chimera, to Rashmi shunning her transfem childhood friend in order to preserve her Good Son status with her family. Almost every awful thing that happens in the book has a (often equally messed up) reason for it, and I think Estro Junkies does an excellent job of explaining the drivers for hurt/abuse without excusing it, and it also eases all that with a steady drip of real care and companionship between the characters. The result is a blunt representation of the ways people do this shit in community, while still making the reasons for it clear.
And as the examples above show, a lot of this shit is both POV and non-POV characters being racist. This is woven throughout the entire book, but is maybe most explicitly considered in Rashmi's arc, which entwines her own familial situation with her partial isolation relative to the other POV characters. Rashmi's a good son, and scared and judgy as hell, and she hurts both Tahani and Rupali (two non-POV desi lesbian characters) because of it. Her POV feels very real; it's a deep mess of desi familial expectations, "hardworking STEMperson" type repression, and a dash of religious trauma for good measure. And while she's not excused for the things she does, she's also treated very sympathetically throughout the book, mainly because she is constantly used as raw material for the other POV characters' transitions. This is most clear with Jeff, who actively uses Rashmi as a strong man to reinforce her own (straight) womanhood, but Kathy and Nichole just do shit constantly, not to even mention the back half of the book. As a result, when she got to have her fairytale moments near the end of the book I felt like screeching like a small flightless bird (also because it is very lesbian as well!). Racism in Estro Junkies comes in a shit sandwich of different, awful flavors; it has structural effects on how characters move and interact in the story; it is often opportunistic or fueled by characters' trauma, but the book is also utterly uninterested in excusing it. It is deeply interwoven in the story -- Rashmi is the POV character maybe most at risk of becoming a John 50 given her planned life, her need for familial approval, and her straight up arranged marriage (to a lesbian, but she doesn't know that), and all of that is inflected by her often-strained interactions with the other POVs. It feels so blisteringly real, and watching Rashmi slowly break out of it all is a treat.
So ultimately, Estro Junkies is a story about repressed, vaguely traumatized trans women and lesbians (and both!) growing out their breasts in a nameless college town. There is a lot of pain to go around here, but I think the book does a good job at easing it with real moments of community. Three of the four POV characters get a more or less happy ending, at least for now, and even as they hurt each other you can really feel them growing through it. If I have any problems with the book, it's mainly that (1) the book starts slow, taking ~3 chapters to really catch me, (2) the RCBG "competition" element of the story is relevant in pretty short bursts -- it's more present than it was in the web serial, but this is still first and foremost a lesbian character drama. Still, as a character drama, it is an extremely compelling one. Despite not usually being interested in this sort of literature, I was hooked around the third chapter, and about halfway through I finished the rest in one long, long sitting. The characters are just so delightfully messy in a way that lesbians rarely get to be, let alone trans lesbians, and this book has so damn many of them that Tahani, Rashmi, Nichole, and Katherine can all be different and opposing kinds of hot mess. It's a book I absolutely recommend, especially if you've read the serial -- Estro Junkie does what RCBG does tighter and better structured with a lot of fundamental rewrites that, to me, made the story really and truly come together.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2026
Reading along with this while it was being released serially on Patreon did terrible things to my psyche. Never before had something I read made me laugh, scream, moan, and get up to pace around the room as frequently as this has. An amazing tragicomedy about trans women trying to stay afloat in communities that incentivize drowning us. 12/10.
May 28, 2026
Like the characters in this book, I took longer than desired in pulling myself out of a despairing pit of horror of pre-transition life. I now have at least two boobs, which is a significant improvement. Unfortunately, this is not the only thing to be done. Transitioning can improve your life significantly, but unfortunately it doesn't fix everything.
This book is about all of the messy, embarrassing, funny, stupid, horrible, and even the lovely and tender things we do as trans women. It is as real as you can get, for the deeper I read into it, the less I paused and the more I allowed the machinery of the book to take me with it. You enter the lives of four girls with serious problems, and get to watch as they muddle their way through transition and claw their way towards self-actualization in spite of the obstacles, often many of them self-imposed. This book captures that experience very well, as one of the things we are often surprised to discover about ourselves is how alike our lives really can be, and how much we hold ourselves back.
Derived from the web serial Ranked Competitive Breast Growth, EJ is a retelling that is worth being told and retold. Readers ignorant of RCBG, or obsessed with it, will find EJ to be a worthwhile read in either case. The competition (for "cis" men only!) is to see whoever can grow the biggest breasts in three years, assuming you don't get kicked out first if someone figures out that you are a woman pretending to be a man.
Because of the nature of the competition, the server is effectively full of trans women, who are encouraged by the culture of the competition to bully and isolate anyone more likely to win than them. This naturally leads to a lot of social fallout, and those in the lead are liable to stalking and other forms of harassment. Nobody really seems to fully feel safe or comfortable being themselves, and a glaring reason why, printed in bold fluorescent lettering is because the competition is obviously set up to divide, exploit, and control vulnerable trans women. The competition is one of the only hormone providers in town, which affords it a lot of power over the women who desperately need them. If we are to compare RCBG to previous medical gatekeeping institutions, it is effectively doing the same thing that they have already been doing to us for the past three quarters of a century, but through a poorly moderated discord server. Our lives and bodies are examined in intrusive detail, deemed fit or unfit for gender-affirming treatments, and then cast away when we are no longer of use.
If I had to compare RCBG and Estro Junkies, the former is a serial developed initially as a joke. The earlier story and characters are rougher around the edges, the story is all over the place, and it is messy, much like the lesbians it contains. Estro Junkies by contrast is a story where this ridiculous competition happens to real people, with real life consequences. A small miscommunication can easily spiral into complete disaster, and yet there are also many moments of genuine tenderness and beauty that make you remember why life is worth it at all. Popular media has been too interested in how we die, rather than how we live. Estro Junkies is a story about how we live.
This book does contain some genuinely awful people, and yet it is possible to understand each perspective of theirs, why they act the way they do, and why they do the things that they do, from the inside-out. This of course doesn't excuse many of the heinous behaviors they engage in, with possessiveness, secrecy, and stalking making frequent appearances. While their actions often come back to bite them in the derriere, it should be emphasized that this culture is not only tolerated, but practically encouraged by the competition. The consequences of the actions of our primary characters often impact the secondary characters in acutely painful and monstrous ways, and the struggle to avoid being trapped in an endless cycle of toxicity is a very relatable one. The book makes you really root for the girls to escape that. From about chapter five or so onwards is when the machinery of the book really engages you and refuses to let go, and it is difficult to stop reading, especially in the second half when it starts to rewire your brain and makes you care very, very deeply what happens to everyone in this story.
This book will change you as much as it changes its characters. You will laugh, and be frustrated, you will cry, get angry, shout, pace, and everything in-between. Like the experience of transitioning, one thing that this book won't do, is disappoint you. Buy this book, and read it. Now.
This book is about all of the messy, embarrassing, funny, stupid, horrible, and even the lovely and tender things we do as trans women. It is as real as you can get, for the deeper I read into it, the less I paused and the more I allowed the machinery of the book to take me with it. You enter the lives of four girls with serious problems, and get to watch as they muddle their way through transition and claw their way towards self-actualization in spite of the obstacles, often many of them self-imposed. This book captures that experience very well, as one of the things we are often surprised to discover about ourselves is how alike our lives really can be, and how much we hold ourselves back.
Derived from the web serial Ranked Competitive Breast Growth, EJ is a retelling that is worth being told and retold. Readers ignorant of RCBG, or obsessed with it, will find EJ to be a worthwhile read in either case. The competition (for "cis" men only!) is to see whoever can grow the biggest breasts in three years, assuming you don't get kicked out first if someone figures out that you are a woman pretending to be a man.
Because of the nature of the competition, the server is effectively full of trans women, who are encouraged by the culture of the competition to bully and isolate anyone more likely to win than them. This naturally leads to a lot of social fallout, and those in the lead are liable to stalking and other forms of harassment. Nobody really seems to fully feel safe or comfortable being themselves, and a glaring reason why, printed in bold fluorescent lettering is because the competition is obviously set up to divide, exploit, and control vulnerable trans women. The competition is one of the only hormone providers in town, which affords it a lot of power over the women who desperately need them. If we are to compare RCBG to previous medical gatekeeping institutions, it is effectively doing the same thing that they have already been doing to us for the past three quarters of a century, but through a poorly moderated discord server. Our lives and bodies are examined in intrusive detail, deemed fit or unfit for gender-affirming treatments, and then cast away when we are no longer of use.
If I had to compare RCBG and Estro Junkies, the former is a serial developed initially as a joke. The earlier story and characters are rougher around the edges, the story is all over the place, and it is messy, much like the lesbians it contains. Estro Junkies by contrast is a story where this ridiculous competition happens to real people, with real life consequences. A small miscommunication can easily spiral into complete disaster, and yet there are also many moments of genuine tenderness and beauty that make you remember why life is worth it at all. Popular media has been too interested in how we die, rather than how we live. Estro Junkies is a story about how we live.
This book does contain some genuinely awful people, and yet it is possible to understand each perspective of theirs, why they act the way they do, and why they do the things that they do, from the inside-out. This of course doesn't excuse many of the heinous behaviors they engage in, with possessiveness, secrecy, and stalking making frequent appearances. While their actions often come back to bite them in the derriere, it should be emphasized that this culture is not only tolerated, but practically encouraged by the competition. The consequences of the actions of our primary characters often impact the secondary characters in acutely painful and monstrous ways, and the struggle to avoid being trapped in an endless cycle of toxicity is a very relatable one. The book makes you really root for the girls to escape that. From about chapter five or so onwards is when the machinery of the book really engages you and refuses to let go, and it is difficult to stop reading, especially in the second half when it starts to rewire your brain and makes you care very, very deeply what happens to everyone in this story.
This book will change you as much as it changes its characters. You will laugh, and be frustrated, you will cry, get angry, shout, pace, and everything in-between. Like the experience of transitioning, one thing that this book won't do, is disappoint you. Buy this book, and read it. Now.
July 24, 2026
Glorious, chaotic, incredibly queer story where everyone is an asshole, but very human. The ending is a fantastic train wreck where at least some people get what they deserve - both in the positive and the negative senses. Loved it, can't wait for the next installment.
July 20, 2026
What a journey. I don't know how they did it to make a kindle book get glued to your eyes. They managed it somehow, I couldn't stop reading. This story is crazy, I need to think about the end. There's enough to discuss in this for a 4 month gender course. The satire, the poetry and the drama are excellent. I was a fan of Talia Bhatt already, but I really hope these two collaborate more!
June 1, 2026
i didn't read the serialization this is based on, but i presume a lot of my issues with estro junkies stem from the fact that it was published in that particular format. estro junkies has that distinct brand of slash fanfiction writing you sometimes see in YA books that started their lives on ao3: lots of hiding knowing smirks, people that feel overly invested in the obvious-to-everyone-but-the-couple relationships of their friends, dialogue exchanges that feel like they should've been a tumblr discourse post instead, heated exchanges where people's eyes darken, that kind of thing.
however, you simply have to admit that it rules that a niche lesbian trans women-centric and -authored piece of online writing got a novelization. once i pushed past the writing this was like eating chips to me. whenever i put this book down for a pause i wanted to keep reading what kind of batshit relationship drama was going on in these women's lives now, whether i found it bizarre (like the nuclear fallout between nichole and her friend group) or touching (like rupali and rashmi's complex bond with each other). it's messy in a fun way, sort of a first-year-of-college kind of deal, and honestly, it's a good palate cleanser between denser or more slow-paced books. not the greatest piece of literature, but it doesn't need to be. i'm glad it exists.
however, you simply have to admit that it rules that a niche lesbian trans women-centric and -authored piece of online writing got a novelization. once i pushed past the writing this was like eating chips to me. whenever i put this book down for a pause i wanted to keep reading what kind of batshit relationship drama was going on in these women's lives now, whether i found it bizarre (like the nuclear fallout between nichole and her friend group) or touching (like rupali and rashmi's complex bond with each other). it's messy in a fun way, sort of a first-year-of-college kind of deal, and honestly, it's a good palate cleanser between denser or more slow-paced books. not the greatest piece of literature, but it doesn't need to be. i'm glad it exists.
June 13, 2026
Sorry to be a hater, but, I expected a book about "competitive breast growth" to be a bit more entertaining? These characters are so awful to each other! And not in a funny way, either - it's legitimately painful. I guess that's supposed to be the point, but, still.
June 8, 2026
okay that shit was crazy. talia bhatt i was NOT familiar with your game
jokes aside, i really really enjoyed this read! estro junkies manages to strike this insane balance between sillygoofy satire and gut-wrenching fiction that works really well. i had started reading the rcbg webnovel at the behest of my friend, and the novelization, to me, keeps in a lot of the humor and dynamics that made rcbg fun while amplifying some of the broader nuances that show up a bit later on in the webnovel. it has a lot to say about transness (duh), but also a lot to say about intersectional issues within queer and trans communities, ESPECIALLY when it comes to race.
as a south asian queer, there were sooo many elements that made me feel seen in ways that i don't often see addressed in fiction, and i really, really appreciated how carefully the authors approached every one of their characters of color especially. rashmi and rupali i love youuuuu <333 i will be reading the next one. also everyone go read talia bhatt's essays on substack neow
jokes aside, i really really enjoyed this read! estro junkies manages to strike this insane balance between sillygoofy satire and gut-wrenching fiction that works really well. i had started reading the rcbg webnovel at the behest of my friend, and the novelization, to me, keeps in a lot of the humor and dynamics that made rcbg fun while amplifying some of the broader nuances that show up a bit later on in the webnovel. it has a lot to say about transness (duh), but also a lot to say about intersectional issues within queer and trans communities, ESPECIALLY when it comes to race.
as a south asian queer, there were sooo many elements that made me feel seen in ways that i don't often see addressed in fiction, and i really, really appreciated how carefully the authors approached every one of their characters of color especially. rashmi and rupali i love youuuuu <333 i will be reading the next one. also everyone go read talia bhatt's essays on substack neow
June 19, 2026
Estro Junkies is a fairly serious grounded dramatic comedy about four early transition trans women roommates in college, their parallel illicit transitions kept secret even from each other, and how the changes they experience are impacted by social, economic, cultural, sexual, and racial issues. This serious description might be of some surprise to those who have yet to read it but are familiar with its mother, the absurdist comedy serialization Ranked Competitive Breast Growth. One might naturally think this is a massive departure from the source material. Instead, coauthors Talia Bhatt and Beth Leigh-Ann and editor Emma Zakharuk shined RCBG to absolute perfection, keeping all the same elements but refining them masterfully.
The changes are, if boiled down to the synopsis level, relatively slight: Estro Junkies remains the story of Rashmi, Nichole, Katherine and Desdemona, four trans women roommates attending the same college and participating in the Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition that demands that deny their gender in order to get the critical healthcare necessary to express that gender. All four still struggle with maladaptive coping narratives from dealing with that self denial and the denial from the other women closest to them. Their personalities are almost entirely unchanged, their relationships with each other are almost identical, and almost every plot event still occurs (although some are slightly changed in timing). What Estro Junkies instead modifies is primarily the framing, and the context. In RCBG, our characters have barely any backstory. Their families, their economic situations, even for some of them their ethnicities are never mentioned: who even is Nichole in RCBG, other than “the one that’s full of herself and thinks she’s normal”? Where did she come from, what shaped her to be so full of herself and thinking she’s normal? Estro Junkies cares a lot about those questions, and puts a lot of effort into the characters, Nichole especially, to bring them up to the three dimensional standards previously only Rashmi met. Rashmi, meanwhile, has far more POV scenes than she did in the serial, in order to bring her up to primary protagonist status. She also reframes certain scenes to drive very different points with the same events thanks to her specific perspective compared to one of the white girls, most notably for the “Discursive Combat” scene.
Rashmi and Nichole’s paths through the story diverge in inverse but parallel arcs, bent by the gravity of their circumstances and histories, their baggage and their status in society. They’re both so much more than JUST trans and Estro Junkies shines so brilliantly for that, even as it remains ever faithfully a transfeminine novel about trans women, made by and for trans readers. I had a fantastic time reading this: deeply relatable at parts, intellectually stimulating throughout, frequently very very funny, and always acting in well considered and planned expertise with every step it takes and every element it introduces. This is the hallmark for what an adaptation of a serialization could be, the novel all other such adaptations should strive to be. I can confidently say I’ve never seen an adaptation done better.
The changes are, if boiled down to the synopsis level, relatively slight: Estro Junkies remains the story of Rashmi, Nichole, Katherine and Desdemona, four trans women roommates attending the same college and participating in the Ranked Competitive Breast Growth competition that demands that deny their gender in order to get the critical healthcare necessary to express that gender. All four still struggle with maladaptive coping narratives from dealing with that self denial and the denial from the other women closest to them. Their personalities are almost entirely unchanged, their relationships with each other are almost identical, and almost every plot event still occurs (although some are slightly changed in timing). What Estro Junkies instead modifies is primarily the framing, and the context. In RCBG, our characters have barely any backstory. Their families, their economic situations, even for some of them their ethnicities are never mentioned: who even is Nichole in RCBG, other than “the one that’s full of herself and thinks she’s normal”? Where did she come from, what shaped her to be so full of herself and thinking she’s normal? Estro Junkies cares a lot about those questions, and puts a lot of effort into the characters, Nichole especially, to bring them up to the three dimensional standards previously only Rashmi met. Rashmi, meanwhile, has far more POV scenes than she did in the serial, in order to bring her up to primary protagonist status. She also reframes certain scenes to drive very different points with the same events thanks to her specific perspective compared to one of the white girls, most notably for the “Discursive Combat” scene.
Rashmi and Nichole’s paths through the story diverge in inverse but parallel arcs, bent by the gravity of their circumstances and histories, their baggage and their status in society. They’re both so much more than JUST trans and Estro Junkies shines so brilliantly for that, even as it remains ever faithfully a transfeminine novel about trans women, made by and for trans readers. I had a fantastic time reading this: deeply relatable at parts, intellectually stimulating throughout, frequently very very funny, and always acting in well considered and planned expertise with every step it takes and every element it introduces. This is the hallmark for what an adaptation of a serialization could be, the novel all other such adaptations should strive to be. I can confidently say I’ve never seen an adaptation done better.
June 5, 2026
Estro Junkies is the bomb
This book rules. Must read for wlw fans.
Are you questioning your gender? This story might help you figure some stuff out!
A wonderful combination of comedy, romance, and drama. I'm hooked
This book rules. Must read for wlw fans.
Are you questioning your gender? This story might help you figure some stuff out!
A wonderful combination of comedy, romance, and drama. I'm hooked
Review of advance copy received from Author
If I had to pick one way to pitch this book, it would be this: Estro Junkies is a labor of love. The book loves its characters, the story it's telling, the community it's telling its story about. Make no mistake: EJ’s love is not the type of love that will unconditionally put up with your bullshit. It’s not the type of love that spoonfeeds you and uses therapy-speak; it’s the kind of love that bonks you over the head with a paper towel tube and goes, “hey, get it together.” It’s the difference between nicety and kindness; the latter is, with all its heart, sincere. EJ is painfully, beautifully sincere. The book’s love shines a light on the vibrancy of the human experience, the complexity of it, without flinching.
This is not a book about “dunking on” people for being “cringe”; nor is it a book interested in sanitizing its characters’ actions. It’s a genuinely funny book, the humor much more grounded and, I think, subtle, than the original web serial, but it’s also a serious book. The absurd premise is not a distraction, but a jumping off point for the book’s satire. It’s much more cohesive than the serial, and it’s got fresh new content for readers of the original serial just as much as it does for readers jumping in blind. You don’t need to read RCBG to understand Estro Junkies. Estro Junkies is fully capable of standing alone, and it does so. I really, truly love the way the characters are handled in this version of the story.
I love the way that the characters of colour are handled in this story. I love Rashmi so much; I adore Rupali. I love the way the author so clearly understands what it’s like to deal with being the only (or one of the only) trans women of colour in the room, especially in queer and trans women majority spaces. This book really understands the subtle ways that whiteness is centered in daily life, and the full implications of what that means for day-to-day interaction. The overt depictions of racism from the web serial are much more fine-tuned in this book to keep them grounded; but it’s the covert depictions that, to me, stand out the most – the expectations placed upon a person of colour when stuck in a white majority space; the subtle dehumanization; the entitlement white folk have to your time, your energy, your body. The way you are treated as something to consume, to worship (until you are inevitably burnt to the ground), and to degrade, all at once.
The characters of this colour in this book – all women, majority trans – are so, so important. This is where the love really shines; I don’t know if I could’ve trusted anyone else to write these women the way the author does in Estro Junkies. To put it simply: they’re people. They’re not “liberated” by the white folk, but nor do they exist to teach the white characters of this book moral lessons. They aren’t the villains of this story, but they’re not treated as paragons of moral virtue, either. They don’t spend every single second explaining the basics of their culture to you, as if this is an after school special. The author refuses to flinch at depicting what their lives are actually like; we get actual, honest-to-god women of colour with personalities, with their own arcs, their own hearts and minds. I really, truly appreciate the south Asian representation in this book. It means a lot to me.
And that brings me back to what I love most about Estro Junkies: the author refuses to flinch. Emotion bleeds onto the page. The flaws of these characters – and they are flawed, heavily so, make no mistake – are depicted with a sharp eye, a critical eye, but not a cruel one. These girls are toxic, but they’re not caricatures or stereotypes. They’re people – messy, incredibly so, but in a way that makes you self-reflect, not in a way that leaves you with a poor taste in your mouth. If you’ve been craving the chance to finally see some queer characters (in particular trans women and lesbian characters) crash the heck out, but in a way where the author actually pulls off these characters still being human – this is the book for you. The complexity of the social dynamics in this book – chef’s kiss. The messy lesbian drama in this book – absolutely delicious.
If you care about stories with south Asian queer representation; if you care about stories with trans women in them, with lesbians in them, with women who are allowed to be people; if you care about stories about what it’s like to be south Asian in queer spaces and navigate that on top of lesbophobia/transmisogyny; heck, if you care about stories that have an actual heart to them even as they ask you to really look at yourself in the metaphorical mirror, or rather, because they ask you to look in that mirror – read Estro Junkies. Read this book. This is the representation we need in the big 2026. It’s the kind of book that uses fiction to depict very serious topics in a much more easily digestible and visceral way than an essay could. It’s critical, but not cynical. It’s satirical, but it’s with love.
This is an emotional, witty, serious, and deeply engaging book. The ending genuinely made me tear up.
Truly, sincerely: thank you so much for writing this book. Thank you for creating something so many of my friends have been craving; I hope to see it on the shelves someday soon.
This is not a book about “dunking on” people for being “cringe”; nor is it a book interested in sanitizing its characters’ actions. It’s a genuinely funny book, the humor much more grounded and, I think, subtle, than the original web serial, but it’s also a serious book. The absurd premise is not a distraction, but a jumping off point for the book’s satire. It’s much more cohesive than the serial, and it’s got fresh new content for readers of the original serial just as much as it does for readers jumping in blind. You don’t need to read RCBG to understand Estro Junkies. Estro Junkies is fully capable of standing alone, and it does so. I really, truly love the way the characters are handled in this version of the story.
I love the way that the characters of colour are handled in this story. I love Rashmi so much; I adore Rupali. I love the way the author so clearly understands what it’s like to deal with being the only (or one of the only) trans women of colour in the room, especially in queer and trans women majority spaces. This book really understands the subtle ways that whiteness is centered in daily life, and the full implications of what that means for day-to-day interaction. The overt depictions of racism from the web serial are much more fine-tuned in this book to keep them grounded; but it’s the covert depictions that, to me, stand out the most – the expectations placed upon a person of colour when stuck in a white majority space; the subtle dehumanization; the entitlement white folk have to your time, your energy, your body. The way you are treated as something to consume, to worship (until you are inevitably burnt to the ground), and to degrade, all at once.
The characters of this colour in this book – all women, majority trans – are so, so important. This is where the love really shines; I don’t know if I could’ve trusted anyone else to write these women the way the author does in Estro Junkies. To put it simply: they’re people. They’re not “liberated” by the white folk, but nor do they exist to teach the white characters of this book moral lessons. They aren’t the villains of this story, but they’re not treated as paragons of moral virtue, either. They don’t spend every single second explaining the basics of their culture to you, as if this is an after school special. The author refuses to flinch at depicting what their lives are actually like; we get actual, honest-to-god women of colour with personalities, with their own arcs, their own hearts and minds. I really, truly appreciate the south Asian representation in this book. It means a lot to me.
And that brings me back to what I love most about Estro Junkies: the author refuses to flinch. Emotion bleeds onto the page. The flaws of these characters – and they are flawed, heavily so, make no mistake – are depicted with a sharp eye, a critical eye, but not a cruel one. These girls are toxic, but they’re not caricatures or stereotypes. They’re people – messy, incredibly so, but in a way that makes you self-reflect, not in a way that leaves you with a poor taste in your mouth. If you’ve been craving the chance to finally see some queer characters (in particular trans women and lesbian characters) crash the heck out, but in a way where the author actually pulls off these characters still being human – this is the book for you. The complexity of the social dynamics in this book – chef’s kiss. The messy lesbian drama in this book – absolutely delicious.
If you care about stories with south Asian queer representation; if you care about stories with trans women in them, with lesbians in them, with women who are allowed to be people; if you care about stories about what it’s like to be south Asian in queer spaces and navigate that on top of lesbophobia/transmisogyny; heck, if you care about stories that have an actual heart to them even as they ask you to really look at yourself in the metaphorical mirror, or rather, because they ask you to look in that mirror – read Estro Junkies. Read this book. This is the representation we need in the big 2026. It’s the kind of book that uses fiction to depict very serious topics in a much more easily digestible and visceral way than an essay could. It’s critical, but not cynical. It’s satirical, but it’s with love.
This is an emotional, witty, serious, and deeply engaging book. The ending genuinely made me tear up.
Truly, sincerely: thank you so much for writing this book. Thank you for creating something so many of my friends have been craving; I hope to see it on the shelves someday soon.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I’m so confused.*
The cover and title caught my eye, and the hook is great: a group of cis men who take estrogen in a contest to see who can grow the largest breasts. It’s a classic male gambit, like Powder Puff football; men showing how comfortable they are with effeminacy while still retaining the dignity of manhood, much like drag queens.
The setup assured me there would be quality M/M content; two of the guys were gay for each other already. Add in the pressure cooker of a million-dollar prize and fireworks were guaranteed, like if Mr. Beast teamed up with Big Brother to create a baptism by fire where they all turn gay and fuck each other senseless.
Or so you would think.
It turns out, most of the fireworks involved the guys arguing about which of these biological males was actually a trans woman just because they took hormones (and in some cases, got a sex change operation). If one of them “admits” to being a woman, they’re out, just like the cover says: NO GIRLS ALLOWED.
The thing is, the longer this book goes on, the more we see that most of these guys are starting to actually believe they are secretly trans women, that they are just using the contest to get hormones they couldn’t otherwise get. The internal arguments inside each of their heads are almost as tedious as the arguments between the characters, which take up WAY more page space than the gay sex, which is mostly only referred to and not shown. What is this, a lesbian book?
Which—you’re probably not going to believe this, and I can’t believe I’m typing it—but canonically, by the end of the book, THEY’RE ALL LESBIANS. Lesbians who like to suck each other’s cocks. Smdh.
The question becomes a little more complicated by the addition of breasts & “feminine” curves from the hormones, plus the makeup, dresses, and the like. But as I said before, drag queens dress like women and they’re not afraid to call themselves men! Some drag queens even get silicone implants for a more feminine appearance, which is their right! Feminine men are still men!! Femboys are still men!!
What about the ones who got a “sex-change” operation, you may ask? First of all, let’s put their gametes under a microscope and we’ll see who’s a woman and who’s not. Secondly, it’s not unheard of for cis gay men to get surgery if they exclusively bottom and want to do less prep. I read it on Reddit!
I genuinely hope the book is trying, in its own perverse way, to show the ravages of gender ideology on its cis male victims. For the chance at a measly million bucks, which is not that much in 2026, these men get sucked into a seedy underworld of hormones, surgery, and vituperative discord message boards. After a year in this toxic echo chamber, it’s no wonder most of them give up and “come out” as trans.
The toxicity is not limited to how they medically degrade their bodies. In every friendship, in every relationship, in nearly every situation, every single individual in this book is a GIANT GAPING ASSHOLE. They’ll be about to kiss and one of them will say the stupidest shit you ever heard, and the next thing you know, instead of fucking, they’re screeching about how they never want to see each other again. The one relationship that really ends up working is—well, I’d hate to spoil the surprise, but let’s say it was the only one I wasn’t pulling for.
One final quibble is that the two Indian characters are forever calling everyone else a racist or colonizer just because they don’t know the deep history of the hijra or what kind of clothes to wear at an Indian wedding. The tiniest, most well-meaning comment or gesture by one of the white characters gets twisted into “proof” of their deep-seated hatred of anyone who isn’t white. It feels like cancel culture in book form. I thought we’d moved past that.
Should you read this book? If you hate yourself, yes. If you want to be mad for 300 pages, definitely. If you want to temporarily forget what the difference between a man and a woman is, to be plunged into an abyss of self-doubt, endless recriminations, and world-class misandry, this is the book for you.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
*This review is written from the POV of a fictional reader who is not me. None of the things in this review reflect my opinions or my experience of reading Estro Junkies, except the part about being mad for 300 pages. Well, some of them might reflect the awful things characters in the book said. Me? I adored this book. It’s up there with Welcome to Dorley Hall and A Rotten Girl in the new “Let transfeminine characters be problematic and shitty, as a treat” canon.
The cover and title caught my eye, and the hook is great: a group of cis men who take estrogen in a contest to see who can grow the largest breasts. It’s a classic male gambit, like Powder Puff football; men showing how comfortable they are with effeminacy while still retaining the dignity of manhood, much like drag queens.
The setup assured me there would be quality M/M content; two of the guys were gay for each other already. Add in the pressure cooker of a million-dollar prize and fireworks were guaranteed, like if Mr. Beast teamed up with Big Brother to create a baptism by fire where they all turn gay and fuck each other senseless.
Or so you would think.
It turns out, most of the fireworks involved the guys arguing about which of these biological males was actually a trans woman just because they took hormones (and in some cases, got a sex change operation). If one of them “admits” to being a woman, they’re out, just like the cover says: NO GIRLS ALLOWED.
The thing is, the longer this book goes on, the more we see that most of these guys are starting to actually believe they are secretly trans women, that they are just using the contest to get hormones they couldn’t otherwise get. The internal arguments inside each of their heads are almost as tedious as the arguments between the characters, which take up WAY more page space than the gay sex, which is mostly only referred to and not shown. What is this, a lesbian book?
Which—you’re probably not going to believe this, and I can’t believe I’m typing it—but canonically, by the end of the book, THEY’RE ALL LESBIANS. Lesbians who like to suck each other’s cocks. Smdh.
The question becomes a little more complicated by the addition of breasts & “feminine” curves from the hormones, plus the makeup, dresses, and the like. But as I said before, drag queens dress like women and they’re not afraid to call themselves men! Some drag queens even get silicone implants for a more feminine appearance, which is their right! Feminine men are still men!! Femboys are still men!!
What about the ones who got a “sex-change” operation, you may ask? First of all, let’s put their gametes under a microscope and we’ll see who’s a woman and who’s not. Secondly, it’s not unheard of for cis gay men to get surgery if they exclusively bottom and want to do less prep. I read it on Reddit!
I genuinely hope the book is trying, in its own perverse way, to show the ravages of gender ideology on its cis male victims. For the chance at a measly million bucks, which is not that much in 2026, these men get sucked into a seedy underworld of hormones, surgery, and vituperative discord message boards. After a year in this toxic echo chamber, it’s no wonder most of them give up and “come out” as trans.
The toxicity is not limited to how they medically degrade their bodies. In every friendship, in every relationship, in nearly every situation, every single individual in this book is a GIANT GAPING ASSHOLE. They’ll be about to kiss and one of them will say the stupidest shit you ever heard, and the next thing you know, instead of fucking, they’re screeching about how they never want to see each other again. The one relationship that really ends up working is—well, I’d hate to spoil the surprise, but let’s say it was the only one I wasn’t pulling for.
One final quibble is that the two Indian characters are forever calling everyone else a racist or colonizer just because they don’t know the deep history of the hijra or what kind of clothes to wear at an Indian wedding. The tiniest, most well-meaning comment or gesture by one of the white characters gets twisted into “proof” of their deep-seated hatred of anyone who isn’t white. It feels like cancel culture in book form. I thought we’d moved past that.
Should you read this book? If you hate yourself, yes. If you want to be mad for 300 pages, definitely. If you want to temporarily forget what the difference between a man and a woman is, to be plunged into an abyss of self-doubt, endless recriminations, and world-class misandry, this is the book for you.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
*This review is written from the POV of a fictional reader who is not me. None of the things in this review reflect my opinions or my experience of reading Estro Junkies, except the part about being mad for 300 pages. Well, some of them might reflect the awful things characters in the book said. Me? I adored this book. It’s up there with Welcome to Dorley Hall and A Rotten Girl in the new “Let transfeminine characters be problematic and shitty, as a treat” canon.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I just finished my review copy of Estro Junkies, thank you so much to Talia and Beth for sending me a copy in advance. For those that have been waiting to read this, you aren't ready.
If you haven't pre ordered it yet then the best time to pre order Estro Junkies was yesterday. The second best time is now.
I laughed, I cried, I bit down on my pillow to stop myself from screaming at 4am because I couldn't put it down. For those that have read the serial, it isn't just an edited and polished version, it's a whole ass reimagining of the silly shit post we know and love. It's familiar in all the ways that matter and completely different in ways that matter even more. If Ranked Competitive Breast Growth is your favourite takeout shared with friends on a Friday night? Estro Junkies is a banquet dinner, each course lovingly crafted by culinary mistresses you'll gorge yourself on until breaking point. f all the RCBG brainworms and jokes are a bag of hammers repeatedly beating you over the head? Estro Junkies is an elegant gilded war hammer hitting you in the chest at the moment of sheer devastating climax.
If you liked the idea of RCBG but didn't read it because of how shitposty it seemed? This is the version for you. This story is real. It's loving and brutally honest and grounded in ways you'll wonder how it can possibly be born from the same concept.
If you're cis? I desperately need you to read it. You have to understand that this is the genuine actual the trans experience, this story IS our lives. This is what it's actually like and not whatever sobslop Oscar bait movie the academy is patting itself on the back for this year. Ranked Competitive Breast Growth for Cis Men isn't even that farfetched, the are much worse institutions in the real world, believe me. This is a story about our communities, online spaces and real life spaces, it's about our friends, our relationships, and how living in a world that denies you the right to truly become yourself can lead to absolute hilarious absurdity.
If you haven't pre ordered it yet then the best time to pre order Estro Junkies was yesterday. The second best time is now.
I laughed, I cried, I bit down on my pillow to stop myself from screaming at 4am because I couldn't put it down. For those that have read the serial, it isn't just an edited and polished version, it's a whole ass reimagining of the silly shit post we know and love. It's familiar in all the ways that matter and completely different in ways that matter even more. If Ranked Competitive Breast Growth is your favourite takeout shared with friends on a Friday night? Estro Junkies is a banquet dinner, each course lovingly crafted by culinary mistresses you'll gorge yourself on until breaking point. f all the RCBG brainworms and jokes are a bag of hammers repeatedly beating you over the head? Estro Junkies is an elegant gilded war hammer hitting you in the chest at the moment of sheer devastating climax.
If you liked the idea of RCBG but didn't read it because of how shitposty it seemed? This is the version for you. This story is real. It's loving and brutally honest and grounded in ways you'll wonder how it can possibly be born from the same concept.
If you're cis? I desperately need you to read it. You have to understand that this is the genuine actual the trans experience, this story IS our lives. This is what it's actually like and not whatever sobslop Oscar bait movie the academy is patting itself on the back for this year. Ranked Competitive Breast Growth for Cis Men isn't even that farfetched, the are much worse institutions in the real world, believe me. This is a story about our communities, online spaces and real life spaces, it's about our friends, our relationships, and how living in a world that denies you the right to truly become yourself can lead to absolute hilarious absurdity.
June 8, 2026
This book is insane. If the title and description didn't give it away, this is very much a work of chronically online trans girl insider baseball. Imagine if the 4chan LGBT forum was forced to confront its own reflection in the form of a satirical competition whose goal is to transition while remaining wholly self-loathing and in denial about transitioning. Four separate points of view are impressively realized, each character's inner voice sounding both unique and expressive of their personality. Plot comes fast and, honoring its completely gonzo premise, quickly goes off the rails. Really, I can't state enough how well not only the politics of gender transgression (and our endless self-theorizing and rationalizing) are satirized through situational comedy, but how often those situations had me alternatively howling and wanting to curl up into a ball. If I had to give a criticism, I'd say scene transitions are sometimes very abrupt, and incidental characters often sound the same—plainly stating their role in the story before quickly disappearing. Minor nitpicks in a work that is wholly unique, charmingly strange, and possibly madness inducing. I love it.
August 1, 2026
one of the most relatable stories I've ever read as a socially awkward transgender woman. it makes me so happy that I can read something like this and know that there are others out there who understand my experiences. thank you so much for writing this
June 7, 2026
Difficult to know what to say about this book! Loved the satirical competition, enjoyed learning more acronyms and terms used by the LGBT+ community that I was unaware of, felt my brain twisted in the best possible way considering gender in ways I hadn’t previously.
But something was missing or just was a bit off for me - which I think comes from questioning if people really speak to each other like these characters do?
But something was missing or just was a bit off for me - which I think comes from questioning if people really speak to each other like these characters do?
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